00:05 Christian: I am very happy to welcome you all to a very special episode of the video podcast today because we have the founder and the guy who runs everything from start-up radio with us. And who’s giving us kind of behind the scenes look and the plans for the future so you may know my voice. I’m Christian, from New York the guy who is the like co-host of the start-up radio but with us is Uren, and we are in beautiful New York and took the opportunity to talk about the future of the project. So, hello Uren.

00:45 Uren: Thank you very kind of welcome.

00:46 Christian: Yes and we decided that we want to make this a bit also about your personal background because probably readers don’t or listeners don’t really know this. Tell us how you got into this whole podcasting thing in the first place?

01:02 Uren: Well, where do I start well I did my national service as an EMT then I started a vocational training at Bank and then I started University. And during university, I was already a person who was interested in start-up, in entrepreneurship, in consulting so I started a junior enterprise meaning an enterprise consisting only of students to advise local merchants local companies small businesses medium businesses on certain topics then I moved to China for my internship with the Chinese government and during this time I started a language school which then turned out the language school chain with five branches on top in China together with a friend on the ground there and then I came basically for one year to the United States where I did my bachelor’s at Midwestern State in Wichita Falls in Texas, not Kansas, Texas and um by the way [Go Mustangs]

02:07 Christian: Yes

02:07 After that I started working consulting especially Capital Markets banking like asset management everybody that’s basically tossing around the money of other people and during this time I got approached by a very good old friend and he said he knows another person who is looking for like a co-host of a podcast and I told him okay I’ve drawn it for one or two episodes which turned out to be from summer 2012 till end of 2017 so a little bit more than five years and it was start-up radio.de. The now-defunct germ channel of start-up radio which I was referring to a lot before.

02:53 Christian: Okay, yeah I have to apologize if someone was hearing my zipper just warming here but anyway, I like about this they’re probably your way into this wasn’t like a traditional journalists way but more you came more from the entrepreneurial side of things and you have I think a very practical approach to getting the stuff out there

03:18 Uren: People definitely see this when something is not really 100% cut it’s sometimes a little bit edgy I am it that I’m not a video producer by heart I’m not a journalist I’m moving a little bit into both directions but basically I’m a business guy I’m more interested in what’s behind it the logic but actually I also realized I also love to talk to our successful entrepreneurs how they made it hear their stories and stuff like this right now I’m doing a little bit shorter interviews but basically I like to do more the interviews as I did for example with Luca, from Get Penta, we’ve been talking online for like two hours and then I cut it down to two interviews maybe an hour in total that was that’s something I really like just to hear everything the people want to talk about and do a little bit more extensive stuff in depth like our FinTech review with Paulo where I realized it goes 45 minutes it’s just audio but people stay on it on YouTube for like 30 minutes because they’re interested in what we’re talking about and of course still I love Paulo’ Italian accent.

04:36 Christian: What would you say are one or two things that you learn probably especially in the last year when the whole project grew a bit more in terms of how to start your own endeavor yourself? Because I mean in the end, it’s also it’s also a little a little start-up so what were two things that you probably underestimated before and now like a key take away from the last twelve months?

05:05 Uren: Well, for audio and video just one key takeaway audio and video it’s very tough to do it yourself everybody says yeah it’s easy it’s like this and that yes but you always have problems like for example interview partners. We have like new microphones but they shake it you hear it they turn it off and you have to reduce stuff cameras SD cards are not working I had for example one once when I was doing a sponsored interviews just my complete Oh cam caught it completely burned out so basically the their chips they are completely burned. So, I could not rescue even some of the material that was on there so the video and audio clip recording his heart I’m getting better I know this but it’s still not perfect that was the first part and the second part is we have to work long and consistently so that means like the first podcast was listened to by like 300 people when I did the first one back in 2014 but I have to work very hard on each episode not only in getting it together but also in promoting it like I have other people who share it I do promotions and AdWords in YouTube and Facebook and whatever and so basically it’s not only the production is hot but also bring it to the right people to-to grow your subscribers.

Admittedly I’ve been more or less successful just last year we had like a growth rate of visitors and subscribers to our audio only podcast of like beyond 360 percent which I was very happy with but there’s still a lot of upside potential meaning the production of all the stuff is hot but also afterwards the marketing and I’m learning more and more effective ways to actually do it but it’s still far away from easy it’s not like you buy a camera you buy a microphone you put it on you do two videos and you have millions of subscribers that’s not how it works especially since I’m in a little bit special position you see. I explained to most people if you have YouTube and on the one extreme there’s like she’s famous in Germany BBC Beauty Palace it’s like a lady who gives make-up advice to girls and on the other side of the extremely Bloomberg I will be more like Bloomberg so that means I’ll never get like the millions of views per YouTube interview but I have different people I have special people I have like a special interest group who is interested in VC and entrepreneurship in start-ups and technology and stuff like that. So, that side I always want to be more like Bloomberg more a little bit behind the scenes more bit a little bit in debt more a little bit in rooted in hard data for which I also started some initiatives to get them together rather than just doing hey guys make-up color whatever.

08:04 Christian: Yeah, sure I mean but also I mean these videos come across as very easy and like very authentic but I think also they are surprisingly they have a surprising production value in the end and all their let’s say authenticity in the end is very carefully curated and anyway, what I really like about what you said is I think the fact that if you start something you also have to be very forgiving for to yourself because you will make all these mistakes and the technical stuff won’t work and you will realize well it’s not there where everyone where I wanted to be and yet you keep added and you have to you have to do it all the time and the consistency so that things can grow over time. And I think here I’m just to give a little background where we are we are at the City University of New York where they also have like an entrepreneurship class for journalism and of the key facts there is that the people learn to just put you put themselves out there and put their products out there and it will find its audience and if you write a newsletter and one day you had I mean the next day you will the next time around you will catch more typos than you did this time around and it will grow from like 100 250 people to 200 people. Do you think when you talk to entrepreneurs that a lot of them are very realistic about what it takes to get into the business or do you think that still, so many people think about building the next super big thing like what do you think is like a general mood of most of them?

09:39 Uren: Well, the people I meet are very diverse like people all over the world. There some people like a handful who understand to make beautiful PowerPoint presentations and their business model is to raise venture capital with it and then there are other very dedicated people who run for example regular meetups besides what they’re doing just to encourage other people to start starts-ups to get interested to advance the interest in meeting other people and there’s and there’s everything in between those extremes.

10:14 Christian: Yeah, yeah

10:14 Uren: And then they’re like the people who are like more educated who were really data-driven and then they’re the also the gap people who just make it by gut feeling and I would say I’m between both of them.

10:27 Christian: Okay, here you always say you need a hipster a hacker and a hustler.

10:32 Uren: that’s right.

10:32 Christian: So, three roles and probably to sum things up like what is something looking into the future that you can already tease what’s happening or what is your next big stretch goal for where the whole project is going to go?

10:50 Uren: That’s a tough question so, of course I’m looking for more sponsors because with the sponsors I can do stuff like this here getting for one week to New York doing like 10/12 interviews and well weekend guys I could tell you what the jet like. It’s no fun. It’s not the entertainment value that I bring across. It’s tough work it’s like getting into over crowded subway during rush-hour with all your luggage and you see I have like a tripod I have like camera backpack I have additional bags and all this stuff and I can tell your secret you don’t make friends with the New York rush-hour in the subway.

11:28 Christian: Take off the backpack people when you’re in the New York subway. That our take way. That’s all my friends all the questions I’ve got not.

11:37 Uren: Not Only that I’m looking for a little bit more sponsors to participate more in event and some people are still in the meet-up group what we had life events I want to start doing them again like life interviews live panels but right now I’m a little bit more into moving more into video and keeping the audio content alive and then thinking about when I have like a stable plan how I continue the production of video interviews and audio interviews and then see how my time schedule looks and then doing some additional life events. Well, I can tell that there will be a cool Christmas bloopers episode there will be much more interviews coming. As well as some hard data from the run man area with another project I’m doing and I could tell that there will be more regular start-up news and that there will be of course the any authentic review again this year. And look for a more publication to what’s the fall so that means they’ll be from Thanksgiving till like New Year’s Eve there will be a lot of material coming online.

12:48 Christian: That was the first time someone this year was talking to me about Christmas.

12:53 Uren: There’s always the first

12:54 Christian: Which is also kind of intimidating and so I think it’s also a good way to end things and oh yep. Let’s get some presents.